Parks and Recreation: How a Bill Becomes a Law
"How a Bill Becomes a Law" is the third episode of season five of the comedy series Parks and Recreation and the seventy-first episode of the series overall. It was directed by Ken Whittingham with a script written by Dan Goor. It first aired on NBC on Tuesday, October 4th, 2012 at 9:30 pm. Synopsis Chris Traeger prattles on to the team about his therapist and how much it helped him and says that he wants to do the same thing for Pawnee. Andy mistakes this as meaning that he wants to hire a therapist for the city. Rather, Chris creates a 311 telephone service to help direct people with questions and concerns. This itself results in a comedy of errors as the phone systems do not work correctly and half the team do not even know what they are doing. April Ludgate invites Ben Wyatt to take a spontaneous road trip from Washington, D.C. to Pawnee. Unfortunately, they don't even make it out of the parking garage as there is a huge traffic jam due to a Presidential motorcade on Pennsylvania Avenue. To pass time, April scans through Ben's collection of movie soundtracks and Ben bores here with reading some of his Star Trek fan fiction. Once the traffic clears up, they are faced with a new problem. Ben's car runs out of gas. Meanwhile, Leslie Knope has been pushing for her "Fun in the Sun" government proposal which, if made into law, would keep public swimming pools open for longer hours, which would be of great benefit to junior swimming teams such as the Porpoises. Leslie's greatest obstacle to overcome however is winning the vote of Councilman Jamm, who is also a dentist. Jamm wants Leslie's office as she has her own private bathroom, and threatens to shoot down the bill unless she agrees to certain concessions. Leslie and Tom Haverford try to sidestep Councilman Jamm by winning the approval of Councilman Fielding Milton. Milton is very old however and clings to certain old-world values. Milton forces Leslie and Tom to share lunch with him and they are even finagled into sampling some of what Tom calls the councilman's "racist salad". Meanwhile, Ron Swanson decides to take on a job duty himself when a woman named Diane Lewis calls the 311 hotline complaining about a pothole in front of her house. He brings Andy with him and together they begin work on filling up the pothole. Diane's daughters, Zoe and Ivy, who are both dressed as princesses, invite Andy to play games with them. While Andy is getting dolled up with makeup, Ron continues to diligently fill up the pothole. Diane is very grateful to Ron and Andy picks up on the fact that she is interested in him. Ron is oblivious however, and has no intention of pursuing any sort of casual relations with Diane. Later, back at the office however, Diane shows up to ask Ron out for dinner and he agrees. The business with the "Fun in the Sun" campaign continues to plague Leslie, who decides to get a perm just one hour before the vote comes before the City Council. She learns that Councilman Milton is not going to support her, and now needs Councilman Jamm's support more than ever. She agrees to give up her office and her parking space, as well as getting extra dental work from his DDS practice in exchange for his vote. Councilman Jamm is very satisfied at now having an office with a private bathroom and makes a joke about "dropping kids off at the pool". Cast Principal Cast Also starring Special Guest-Star Guest-Stars Co-Stars Notes & Trivia * Parks and Recreation was created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. * Executive producer and script Writer Daniel J. Goor is credited as Dan Goor in this episode. * Associate producer Thomas Ragazzo is credited as Tom Ragazzo in this episode. * Actress Rashida Jones is credited in this episode, but her character does not make an appearance. * Actor Tyler F. Anderson is credited as Tyler Anderson in this episode. * Actress Hailey Sole is credited as Hailey C. Sole in this episode. * This is the first appearance of Diane Lewis. She makes ten appearances in the series in total. * Actress Lucy Lawless, who plays Diane Lewis, is best known for her portrayal of fantasy warrior woman Xena in the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess. * This is the first television acting work for Sadie Salazar. Allusions * Ben Wyatt is accused of writing Star Trek fan fiction in his spare time. Star Trek is a multimedia franchise that began with a popular television series in 1966 created by Gene Roddenberry. The TV series yielded four live-action spin-off programs, an animated series and numerous feature films. The fan fiction that Ben writes relates to the 1987 TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The characters of Jean-Luc Picard and Data are referenced in this episode. * The book that Donna Meagle is reading rather than doing work is Fifty Shades of Grey. The book is an erotic romance novel written by British author E.L. James. The premise involves themes of sexual exploration, eroticism, bondage and sadomasochism. The book was adapted into a feature film in 2015 directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson. Bloopers * Quotes * See also External Links * * * "How a Bill Becomes a Law" at Wikipedia * * "How a Bill Becomes a Law" at the P&R Wiki * * * References ---- Category:Parks and Recreation/Episodes Category:Parks and Recreation/Season 5 episodes Category:2012/Episodes Category:Episodes with crew categories Category:Episodes with plot summaries